Try as I might I could not relax inside and kept looking out the back door with the flashlight, hoping to catch a glimpse. Then I remembered an old trick that used to work with an incredibly independent basenji I once owned. In order to corral him in a large, fenced-in back yard, I’d had to take a rake in one hand to use as a sort of guiding device to stop his endless circling away from me. Would that work with Frankencat? I got a little rake out of the garage and decided to find out.
I approached the woods very slowly this time, holding the rake behind my back and continuing he circling motion with the flashlight. Lo and behold, after several very embarrassing entreaties, there was Pha (or Frankencat?) in the grass not 10 feet away, looking at the circling beam of light on the grass. Determined to play it cool, I immediately turned my back and said “C’mon Pha, into the light. All are welcome. Run to the light” and started to walk away. I only turned to peek once, but there she was, 10 or 15 yards out of the woods, sniffing her way through the bushes that are planted right in front of the fence. I kept going and didn’t stop until my parents back landing, where I sat down and aimed the flashlight at the fence closest to me. “Well, it’s now or never”, I thought, and got up with the flashlight in one hand and the little rake in the other. I approached her slowly until I reached a point where I thought the rake trick might work.
I pulled it from behind my back and held it out to one side like a lion tamer does with his long poles or whips and said “Let’s go, Pha”.
As soon as she saw the rake she freaked and bolted the 25 yards back into the woods. I had blown it and I knew it. I tossed the rake several feet onto the grass and sat back down, utterly defeated.
But some kind of spell had been broken, for after about five minutes there was Pha again, in the bushes working her way back to me. I didn’t dare move. My father came to the back door when she was only 10 feet away, and afraid he was going to open the door, say something that would make her run I told him “Don’t say a word, she’s right here.”. “Okay,” he whispered. “I was just going to open the door in case she wanted to come in.”
It didn’t occur to me immediately, but this was brilliant. After she once again skittered off at my approach that’s exactly what we did: we swung the door and screen wide-open. I retreated from the door and went to the grass on the other side from where Pha was.
And then it was over before I could even see it coming. She calmly sauntered up to where the food and water bowls were, gave one disdainful look at the tuna and then as though she’d only been outside a moment to use the litter box crossed the threshold and was inside.
Woodpecker Writes 